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The Copper Mountain mineral claims cover an 18,000 acre land package with multiple prospective targets. In 2008, the company succeeded in finishing one of the largest drill programs in British Columbia (106,000 meters) and increased the resource estimate by 45% to 5 billion pounds of copper. The goal of the program was achieved when the results of drilling confirmed continuity of mineralization between the pits which allowed for the development concept of a new merged pit, known as the ‘Super Pit’. This new Super Pit is still open to the north, southeast and northwest, as well at depth.

In addition to the current resources, significant upside still exists on the Copper Mountain project. Exploration has been a successful endeavor on site for nearly 100 years and the company is confident that it will continue to be so.

The aim of future exploration is to define additional resources by ongoing compilation, assessment and generation of drill targets from both historical and more recent data. This strategy will continue to utilize a multi-year approach with a particular focus on geological and structural mapping combined with geochemistry and geophysics.

Recent exploration at Copper Mountain was designed specifically to assist in optimizing the mine plan while also increasing the reserves in the Life of Mine pit. Looking ahead, the exploration mandate is to continue to optimize the mine plan where needed while also testing highly prospective near-mine and peripheral geological targets to build on the known resources on the Copper Mountain project.

2016 Program

A 5,000 meter drill program was completed in the third quarter. The drill program was designed to convert inferred resources into measured and indicated status on the western end of Pit 2.

The Program was successful in upgrading inferred resources to measured and indicated. This increase in resources provides the opportunity to extend the Pit 2 area further to the west.

Geology & Mineralization

Copper Mountain is host to a large, structurally complex alkalic porphyry copper–gold–silver system that is part of a northerly trending Mesozoic tectonostratigraphic terrane termed Quesnellia. The terrane is composed of a volcanic arc with overlying sedimentary sequences, all of which were built on top of a deformed, oceanic sedimentary–volcanic complex. The principle rock formation of Quesnellia is the Late Triassic Nicola Group, a predominately subaqueous island–arc assemblage composed of volcanic and lesser sedimentary rocks. The Nicola Group rocks have a stratigraphic thickness of approximately 7.5 km and form a 25 km wide band that extends from the Canada-U.S. border north to beyond Kamloops Lake. The Copper Mountain alkalic porphyry copper–gold camp occurs in the ‘eastern volcanic belt’ of the Nicola Group.